Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy struck a defiant tone at the White House on Wednesday, questioning whether Kyiv could ever reach a “just peace” with Moscow and pressing Joe Biden to send additional weapons to sustain his war effort through the winter.
The US president used a joint appearance with Zelenskyy, whose Washington trip was his first abroad since the Russian invasion, to tout $1.85bn in new assistance including a long-sought Patriot missile defence battery. He assured his Ukrainian counterpart that Washington was prepared to stand by Kyiv “as long as it takes”.
Zelenskyy was effusive in his thanks to the US president and the American people, and during a meeting in the Oval Office made a highly-symbolic presentation to Biden of a military medal from a frontline soldier commanding a unit armed by US-supplied mobile artillery system.